Less than Perfect

Yesterday I went shopping for wedding/baby gifts, and as I was turning out of the shopping center at Everhart and SPID I saw a man with a cardboard sign. It said "Homeless/Broke." I kept on driving.

But I kept thinking about that man for the rest of the afternoon, and decided to drive back by the shopping center on my way home; I figured I could offer to buy his lunch at the Pizza Hut less than a block over. When I got back to the shopping center, however, he was gone. I had missed my chance.

Later that afternoon I was at home and the phone rang; it was a lady calling for my Dad. She said that it was urgent, that she had run into some bad luck and needed some help. She told me she was related to a family we know well who attends church with us. She sounded worried, but I figured that all I could do was take a message. She hesitated as I said goodbye, and right after I hung up the phone, I thought, "I should've asked if she wanted to pray with me," but it didn't cross my mind until it was too late.

I said a prayer for her anyway, but I know it wasn't quite the same. I had a chance to bless her life, and I couldn't take it because I didn't recognize it quickly enough.

But I want to learn how to see these things more quickly, to be more bold and fearless, to take chances for Christ, to be the kind of Christian who loves above everything else, who thinks of others before my own self-consciousness.

I can only pray that Mission Year and the transforming power of Christ help me to do so.